


Five Birthday Presents Sonny Never Gave to Vinnie

by Marguerite Muguet (margueritem)



Category: Wiseguy
Genre: 5 Things, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-28
Updated: 2011-12-28
Packaged: 2017-10-28 07:31:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/305373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/margueritem/pseuds/Marguerite%20Muguet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Originally posted to my livejournal on September 24th, 2006.</p><p>Betaed by merricatk. All remaining errors are mine.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Five Birthday Presents Sonny Never Gave to Vinnie

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to my livejournal on September 24th, 2006.
> 
> Betaed by merricatk. All remaining errors are mine.

  1. Sonny showed up at five am. He strode right in, shook Vinnie somewhat awake and told him to get up, up, up, put some pants on - no, not those -, let's go. Not really awake, the warmth of sleep still clinging to him, Vinnie obeyed. He put on the pants handed to him and tried to clear his head. It was still dark outside, and the light of the bedside table lamp was harsh on Vinnie's eyes. Sonny was bouncing with barely restrained energy; he looked pleased with himself. Vinnie took comfort in the fact that Sonny would probably not wake him up, smile that much, drive him to a secluded spot and put a bullet between his eyes.

He asked, "What's going on? Where we going?", down the elevator, in the car, at the airport. He thought maybe Sonny had cracked. Maybe he should check Sonny's temperature? Maybe he should call someone - he hadn't had time to call the lifeguard. "Shut up, Vinnie." And still that grin, of the cat that got the bird, the cream and the ball of yarn. In the plane, a private one, he learned they were going to Mexico, Pacific coast. To enjoy the sand, sun, girls and tequila, in Sonny's own words. "But we have no luggage," pointed out Vinnie, trying to figure out how he would call the lifeguard from freaking Mexico. Or where he'd get the style section of the Atlantic City Daily News. Sonny poured him coffee; they were served eggs, fruit, croissant. Sonny flirted with the flight attendant, and he pushed all of Vinnie's objections aside, until finally exasperated Vinnie asked, "Why?"

Sonny looked at him as if he'd hit his head somewhere and lost some IQ points, which wasn't really fair considering Sonny was the one acting like a lunatic here. "Fine." And then Sonny sang "Happy Birthday" in English, in Italian and in mangled Spanish. The flight attendant came back with a very small cake with a single candle on it. Vinnie didn't know what to do, how to express the pleasure and pain squeezing his heart, and could only say, "Thank you."

A week later, back in Atlantic City, Vinnie got chewed out by Frank, which wasn't fair considering Vinnie had never asked for the trip. Sonny tended to just give him things, whether he asked for them or not. Vinnie cut Frank's rant short with a, "Well, what did you get me for my birthday, Frank?" Eventually, Frank ran out of steam and sent him back to Sonny.

Vinnie had a new healthy tan and, for the next few days, he could still taste the salt of the sea, feel it on his skin. He and Sonny did enjoy the sand, the sun, the water, the tequila, but they really never got around to the girls.

  

  2. Mr. Steelgrave had shown up at Carlotta Terranova's doorstep on a Saturday afternoon. He'd been wearing a blue-grey suit, and his movements had expressed - with the years Carlotta had come to recognize the signs - nervousness. He'd been respectful, but frank and to the point. Since the day she'd throw him out of her house, Carlotta had not spoken to Vinnie nor allowed people to mention her youngest son in her presence. Mr. Steelgrave - "call me Sonny, please," he'd asked each time they met and with time she'd done so - had done the second and begged, then negotiated for her to do the first. She knew who the man was, from the papers. It hadn't mattered to her; she'd thrown him out. He showed up the following week and the week after that. One visit, he ended up repairing the leaky faucets in the upstairs bathroom. On another, she gave him food. She'd been cooking, and manners dictated that her unwanted visitor have a taste, at least. She asked him once, "Did Vinnie send you?" And he'd answered, "He doesn't know I'm here." Still, she refused to unbend and sometimes went out when she knew Mr. Steelgrave would come. With time, she noticed that the papers wrote less about the man, that the DA shifted his attention to other people in his televised interviews.

May came around, and Carlotta's estrangement from her son was made more bitter as his birthday approached. She wasn't really surprised when the invitation arrived by the mail. Sonny came to visit, but he didn't mention it, and she didn't either. He was probably coming to realize that the Terranovas only dug their heels in deeper when pushed.

Friday, she made a tiramisu. Sometimes you feel like making a cake, she told herself. When the car showed up on Saturday afternoon, she berated herself, for her pride, her stubbornness, and maybe a little for her weakness. She took the cake and got into the car. She wasn't surprised when they picked up Pete, although he was to see her. She gave him a kiss and told him to hold the cake.

The address was a house in an upper-class area of Atlantic City. The front yard was obviously cared for by a company, the trees well trimmed, the grass neatly cut, the roses a vibrant red. Carlotta had never seen such a house outside of magazines and TV, and she expected a maid to open the door.

But it was Vinnie, looking over his shoulder and saying, "Yeah, yeah, stop pushing, I'll answer the door..." He stopped in mid-sentence when he saw his mother and brother on the porch. "Mama?" She hugged him back just as hard, and tears prickled behind her closed eyes, and she didn't see Sonny standing behind Vinnie, relieved and pleased.

  

  3. When Vinnie went home, he found Frank on his porch. "Bye, Frank." He'd just spend a night chasing and surveying. His eyes ached, his back hurt, his hair itched. He was in need of sleep, food and a bath, and he wasn't picky about the order.

He fumbled a bit with the keys, but got the door opened. He threw his coat on a chair, but was more careful with the camera. He hadn't really tried to close the door on Frank - he blamed the fatigue - and wasn't surprised to see Frank seated at his kitchen table when he came back from the bathroom.

"What do you want, Frank?" The refrigerator had nothing much to eat. He opted to drink water instead of the last remaining bottle of beer and settled on a simple ham and cheese sandwich.

Frank's usually impassive expression, a mix of "I'm bored and you're not impressing me", was quickly replaced with anger. "What do I want? Six months! I stuck my neck out for you and what do I get in return? Six months without a word, that's what I get!" As quick as the anger had come, it left, and Frank slumped back on the chair.

Vinnie took the beer out of the refrigerator and handed it to Frank. It was a small apology, but Frank accepted it. To be fair, Frank deserved more than that, much more than that. But six months ago, Vinnie had been too angry and ashamed to be fair. After Sonny's arrest (along with the rest of them), the OCB hadn't taken too well the destruction of their film evidence. What had been on the tape, the OCB didn't know. No one was talking, least of all their own inside man. Pat the Cat had disappeared from the face of the earth.

Sonny's organisation had still crumbled and its leader was handed a two year prison sentence, for his cooperation, made all the more necessary by the lack of tape. Vinnie was thrown out of the OCB, but did no prison time. Frank had probably been behind that. Vinnie should have expected this, but in those days, he wasn't sure what he was doing, what to make of the hand he'd been dealt, how to face the consequences of his choices. He got into a car and drove away in anger, until he ran out of passion and gas. He stopped in this city, found a job as a private investigator, and rented this house. He followed Sonny's trial on TV. Sonny never shied away from the cameras; he stared directly into them, and Vinnie often had to turn off the TV. He couldn't look at those eyes, that reached deep inside him and bruised his heart.

Sitting in his kitchen, the morning light pouring through the window, Vinnie looked at Frank and could feel no more anger. Regrets and pain were still there, but no more urge to lash out at others, when who he blamed was himself. "What do you want, Frank?"

His ex-boss - and perhaps friend - sighed and threw an envelop on the table. "This came with the mail, yesterday."

Vinnie stared at the stark white envelop. The front only had his address in a handwriting he didn't recognize. It was opened, of course. "Opening mail is a crime, Frank." He fiddled with it, thumbing the edges, not ready yet to look inside.

"Yeah, yeah." Frank got up and made himself a sandwich.

Free of Frank's gaze - was it scrutinizing, anticipatory, worried? Vinnie could no longer tell-, he looked inside. A plain white paper. On it, a bank account number, Swiss most likely, and an address in Italy.

"It's under your name. That we could find out." Frank still hadn't turned around; he spread the last of the mayonnaise on the bread. "We couldn't verify from where it came, though."

They couldn't verify, but they could guess, and it probably was an accurate guess: Sonny.

Vinnie didn't know what this meant. Yesterday. Frank had said the envelop had arrived yesterday. In time for his birthday then. Vinnie wasn't sure. It felt strangely like forgiveness, and it hurt.

"Make sure the door is locked on your way out, will you, Frank?" He didn't wait for an answer and went to his bedroom. Eventually, he heard the front door close, and still he couldn't sleep. His eyes hurt, as he stared at the ceiling.

  

  4. It takes him a lot of time to adjust to prison. On one level, to the sounds, the routine, the claustrophobia. It's like living in a fish bowl, some of them are pirahnas, others gold fish, and yet others aren't fish at all and drown. On another level, Vinnie has to learn the dynamics, the games, the fights. They're all psychological and physical. He tries to remember that he'll get out of here, that he's here for a reason, but sometimes he forgets.

He wins some fights, comes out on top, but he also loses. Either way, there are pieces of him that are breaking loose and falling behind.

Bit by bit, he gets closer and closer to his target: Sonny Steelgrave. He makes himself noticed; he makes himself indispensable. Sonny likes him, takes him under his protection, arranges somehow for them to be cellmates. It's frighteningly easy to get Sonny to trust him. It frightens Vinnie, because he responds to Sonny, finds it much to easy to play his part.

In the power games of prison, Vinnie's still only a pawn.

Blood trickles down his face, blinding him. The rough concrete floor is cold under him and scrapes his face and knees. The hands holding him down are like a vice around his arms, his head. He wants to bite the hand covering his mouth, and his head is knocked against floor for his effort.

The pain explodes inside his head, and for a moment he feels disconnected, out of his body, and the pain in his lower back is only a dim sensation.

When he comes back to, the pain is sharp, but the world is confusing. Over him, the face of the warden, asking him questions, looms too close and he lashes out, delirious with fever. He barely feels the prick of the needle, barely hears the curses of the warden.

Sonny's waiting for him, when they release him from the infirmary. Vinnie moves like an old man, one arm still in a cast, and he looks around like a delirious cornered animal. Fury is etched on Sonny's face, and the first words out of his mouth are of revenge. "I promise," Sonny says, "I promise." He doesn't touch Vinnie, but his eyes, his intensity takes him in and makes him Sonny's.

The tides of power shift, and soon one by one, Vinnie's attackers have unfortunate accidents. They end up dead or worse, and Vinnie knows he shouldn't find as much pleasure in it as he does.

After lights out, when the last one is made to pay, Vinnie slips in Sonny's bunk and lies on top of him. They know the pattern of the guards. They can steal away some minutes and pretend they're not in this hell. In Sonny's kisses, Vinnie tastes the sweetness of promises, of plans beyond these walls.

He doesn't fit in his skin anymore. He puts his hands on Sonny's flushed skin, as if he's trying to push in, to melt into its heat, to cling to him. Sonny shivers, his breath loud and harsh in the silence of their little world.

"Promise me, promise me," Vinnie murmurs against Sonny's lips, and he can't get enough of Sonny's skin, of Sonny's hands, of Sonny's fading, "Yeah, yeah, I promise," repeated until there's no breath left. At 2:15 AM, Vincent Terranova is 29 years old, but Vinnie feels disconnected from those first 29 years. Sonny keeps him grounded, until it passes.

  

  5. Each year, Vinnie and Sonny spend a month in Italy. Two weeks are spent traveling around the south of Italy, visiting family, who would be mortally offended if they didn't, and two weeks are spent in a rented villa (always the same) in Tuscany. Time stops here: no more pressure, no more demands. The sun is different than in Atlantic City: it bathes the rooms like a morning kiss and makes all the colours soft, but intense.

Most mornings, what wakes Sonny, not a morning person, is the birds singing, varied, high pitched, and impossible to stop. There's a high, flourishing tree looming over their bedroom balcony, and the birds consider it a fine nesting place. As always, for the first week, Sonny awakes, curses the birds, gets up to close the bedroom window and curses even more, because there are no glasses here, only wood window panes that muffle the birds, yes, but not as much as glass would.

Vinnie laughs, as Sonny comes back to bed, naked as the day he was born, as Sonny tries to shut him up with mock fighting, until he's gasping under Sonny's weight, Sonny's triumphant and aroused face.

The second week, Sonny gets used to the birds and sleeps until 10 o'clock. Vinnie has time to go on a bike ride along the village. He waves to the older women arguing on the street; he stops and talks with some of the men. His imperfect italian makes them smile, but they remember him from year to year and ask of America. Not as beautiful as Italy, they ask, but not expecting a negative answer. Vinnie smiles and says, "No, not as beautiful as Italy."

He has the time to go by the bakery to buy fresh bread. He buys fruit for their breakfast and sometimes a steak at the butcher for their dinner. The butcher's wife never asks Vinnie what he wants. She sees him arrive and prepares him a package. She tells him how to cook it and often times gets into an argument about this with Mrs. Basso, one of their clients who stops by sometimes to buy, more often just to talk.

He always comes back home to find Sonny still in bed. He tells him to get up. Sonny glares blearily, his hair tousled from the pillow. Vinnie draws the line at bringing coffee in bed. If he doesn't get up, Vinnie will eat breakfast alone.

What Vinnie always misses back in Atlantic City is the fresh orange juice. Each morning, he slices the oranges and presses enough of them for two glasses.

He's eating bread with jam, when Sonny comes into the kitchen, fresh from the shower, with only pajama bottoms on. His mouth tastes of toothpaste, and he says, "Mmm, jam." and kisses Vinnie again as if he wants to taste the jam again.

When Sonny settles down for his breakfast, he's sticky with jam, and Vinnie feels like going to bed again. Or maybe not. The kitchen table seems sturdy enough. Sonny says he's hungry, but a well placed hand and mouth kills his protests.

After a second shower, Sonny finds Vinnie in the study room and hands him a small wrapped box. "Sonny." Vinnie wants to protest, really, because Sonny keeps giving him gifts every day of the year, and Vinnie keeps telling him that it's not about that, about the cars, the clothes, anything material, but just Sonny.

"Just open it, Vinnie." Sonny looks nervous. It shows in the way he holds his hands.

Vinnie opens the package. Inside, he finds an old pocket watch. In the back, he finds the date January 3, 1910 and an inscription. As he reads the words in italian, he mouths them. "With my deep affection, Maria."

"It belonged to my grandfather. My grandmother gave it to him as a wedding present." Sonny's not looking at Vinnie, but at the watch.

Under Vinnie's thumb, the metal is smooth, polished. "Thank you." Vinnie pulls Sonny to him for a kiss. "Thank you," he says again. The clock tick tocks, tick tocks. And it's Sonny's beating heart.

  




End file.
